Garment retaining means for coat hangers



Dec. 8, 1959 L. S. RELLER ET AL GARMENT RETAINING MEANS FOR COAT HANGERS F'i'led May 28, 1958 M'Iness.

M/VENTORS.

[001's 8. Feller Zucille 8. Feller BK @F r ATTORNEK United States Patent O GARMENT RETAINING MEANS FOR COAT HANGERS This invention relates to a device for supporting clothing.and more particularly to a garment engaging holder for use on ordinary wooden coat hangers.

Coat or garment hangers are very old. One of the most usual types is formed from a bar of wood and with a metal hook at its center. This book is adapted to detachably extend over a horizontal supporting rod, bracket, wall, nail, or like. While such hangers are success ful in holding relatively heavy buttoned coats, they are not successful in holding lightweight, flimsy garments, such as dresses, blouses, formals, slips, or like. With such garments, the shoulder strap portions slide downwardly and outwardly on the arcuate bar and, having passed the outer end or ends of the bar, drop from the hanger. Furthermore, lifting the hanger and garment onto or from a horizontal closet supporting bar is most difiicult to accomplish without the garment slipping ofi of the hanger. Also, in removing or replacing other adjacent loaded hangers, the garments are often accidentally removed and dropped from their respective hangers. While some effort has been made to provide garment retainers on coat hangers, they are quite expensive.

Therefore, one of the principal objects of our invention is to provide a simple non-expensive garment retaining means for coat hangers.

More specifically, the object of our invention is to provide a garment retaining clip means for coat hangers that is formed from a single strand of rod wire having spring characteristics.

A further object of this invention is to provide a garment retaining means for coat hangers that may be easily and quickly installed on the hanger.

A further object of our invention is to provide a garment securing means that may be easily and quickly adjusted to accommodate difierent types of garments and difierent widths of garments between the shoulder strap portions.

A still further object of our invention is to provide a garment fastening means that is easily and quickly actuated.

Still further objects of this invention are to provide an efiicient garment hanger that is economical in manufacture, durable in use, and refined in appearance.

These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Our invention consists in the construction, arrangements, and combination, of the various parts of the device, whereby the objects contemplated are attained as hereinafter more fully set forth, specifically pointed out in our claim, and illustrated in the accompanying draw ings, in which:

Fig. l is a front view of our garment hanger in use;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged top plan View of one of our units and is taken from line 2-2 of Fig. 1; and

Fig. 3 is an enlarged bottom view of one of our units on' a coat hanger and more fully illustrates its construction.

In the drawings we have used the numeral 10 to gen- 2,916,193 Patented Dec. 8, 1959 erally designate an ordinary wooden coat hanger having one wing length portion 12 and one wing length portion 13. The numeral 11 designates the usual hook portion secured to the center portion of the coat hanger. It is to such a common and Well known garment hanger that we install our garment retaining means and which we will now describe in detail. We provide two of our clips, i.e., one for each of the top wings 12 and 13. Inasmuch as the clips are exact duplicates of each other, we will describe the structure of only one, itbeing undersiood that the description will apply equally to either c 1p.

As herebefore noted our garment retaining means is of one piece, and is formed from a single strand of spring rod. wire. When formed and in use one end of the wire rod is curved and hooked over the top of the hanger to form a hook portion 14, thence downwardly and outwardly along the face of the hanger to provide a bar retainer portion 15. Next the rod wire passes under the hanger at 16, thence upwardly and outwardly at the back of the hanger to form a bar retainer portion 17, and thence partially over the top of the hanger at 18. From this point the rod wire extends first upwardly and outwardly at 19 above the hanger, thence downwardly, outwardly and laterally to provide the portion 20, thence transversely across the top of the hanger to provide the garment engaging portion 21, thence upwardly, inwardly and laterally to provide the portion 22, and then downwardly and inwardly at 23. These portions 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 produce an arched spring finger as shown in the drawings. The portions 20 and 22 spread laterally away from each other to accommodate the length of the portion 21, as shown in Fig. 2. From the portion 23, the rod wire extends laterally at 24 above the top of the hanger to then extend downwardly and inwardly across the face of the hanger and provide the retainer portion 25. Next the rod wire extends under the hanger at 26, thence upwardly and inwardly along the back of the hanger to provide the retainer portion 27 and thence its other free end is hooked and curved over the top of the hanger to provide the end hook 28. By this arrangement the hanger will be slidably between the portions 15 and 27 and between the portions 17 and 25. The hook portions 14 and 28 will extend across the top of the hanger and the portions 16 and 26 will extend across the bottom of the hanger as shown in Fig. 3. The crossbar portion 21 will yieldingly engage and extend across the top of the hanger. The unit may be slid longitudi nally on the hanger to accommodate diflerent types of garments. One unit is slidably placed on each end length 12 and 13 of the hanger. The portions 18 and 24 will slidably engage the top of the hanger and aid in holding the unit aligned on the hanger. The finger portion of the unit, however, is free for manual movement upwardly as shown by broken lines in Fig. 1 and against its spring action. This finger portion may be manually raised to install or remove a dress 30 from the hanger. Upon release of the finger portion, it will spring downwardly toward the top of the hanger thereby yieldingly clamping a dress onto the hanger against the accidental detachment of the dress or like garment from the hanger.

Each unit is formed from a single length of spring rod wire and inasmuch as each unit is slidably mounted on and around the coat hanger, it may be slid longitudinally completely from the coat hanger. By this arrangement our units may be attached onto or removed from a coat hanger at will. To place our units on a coat hanger, the coat hanger end wing portions are merely threaded through the units as shown in the drawings. To raise the spring finger portion of one of our units, the spring finger portion may be manually grasped at any convenient point. The length of the engaging portion 21 is substantially greater than that of the width of the hanger and if desired one may grasp the bottom of the portion 21 with thumb and finger at each side of the hanger bar for raising the finger, if this grip is more convenient for the user. Be cause each of the units is formed from a length of wire, they are light of Weight and economical in manufacture.

Some changes may be made in the construction and arrangement of our garment retaining means for coat hangers without departing from the real spirit and purpose of our invention, and it is our intention to cover by our claim, any modified forms of structure or use of mechanical equivalents which may be reasonably included within its scope.

We claim:

In combination, a garment hanger having a bar portion, and a one-piece garment retaining means slidable on the bar of said hanger, comprising; a single strand of spring rod wire having one of its outer length portions hooked over the top of the bar of the hanger, said wire then extending downwardly along the face of the bar of the hanger, thence under the bar of the hanger, thence upwardly at the back of the bar of the hanger, thence upwardly and outwardly above the bar of the hanger, thence downwardly and outwardly, thence transversely across the top of the bar of the hanger, thence upwardly and inwardly, thence downwardly and rearwardly, thence downwardly in front of the bar of the hanger, thence under the bar of the hanger, thence upwardly back of the bar of the hanger, and thence hooked over the top of the bar of the hanger.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,459,804 Tarr June 26, 1923 1,589,213 Nygren June 15, 1926 1,610,194 Begy Dec. 7, 1926 2,009,497 Kammritz July 30, 1935 2,408,697 Smith Oct. 1, 1946 2,419,767 Earl Apr. 29, 1947 

